10 Challenges for the Coming Decade

The 2010s are almost over and we will welcome the 2020s in a month or so.  Will you be ready?  Among the challenges we will be facing in the coming new decade include:

1. Having your every move tracked, evaluated, and sold to advertisers in a tidy data packet.  This same information will also be useful to our ever-growing surveillance state.
2. A market crash.  Economics are cyclical so more and more people think a recession will soon be here.  Be prepared--be debt free, have lots of money in savings, diversify your investments, know how to live frugally, have multiple sources of income, etc.
3. Climate change.  More forest fires, more drought...the impact of the climate on everything from polities to economics to the number of creatures we have on our planet will be even more front and center in the next decade.
4. Just a guess, but the 2020 election should be an absolute shit show.  And this will set the tone for years to come.
5. Social concerns.  They aren't getting any better and will probably be even more of an issue in the next decade.  From lack of healthcare, people priced out of housing, a burgeoning homeless population, food insecurity, school systems that are a travesty, ever-increasing prison populations...social concerns that aren't being addresses will be even more impactful during the next decade.
6. Another guess, but by the end of the 2020s, employment and work and jobs as we know them will probably be very different than they are today.
7. Technology will, of course, change drastically as well.  When I think of the number of technological advances in my grandparents lifetime compared to tech changes in my lifetime, things are moving exponentially faster these days.
8. Politics will be...politics as usual.  China will do their thing, Russia will do their thing, our country is moving towards socialism (yikes), and I'm guessing most people in congress have never even read the Constitution or Bill of Rights (double yikes).
9. People's health, well-being, and life expectancy is declining.  This will most likely continue based on what people eat (garbage), how much they exercise (not enough), and how they handle mental health issues (suicide rates are skyrocketing).
10. People are becoming less and less independent.  Whether it is adults who still rely on their parents for support well into the 30s to people who simply can not survive without crowd-sourcing their life via social media to the utter lack of common sense I see more and more of each day, this is yet another challenge everyone will need to deal with in the future.

10 Things On the Horizon

Planning for the future is part of preparedness.  Here are ten things that, while they may not be happening now, are on the horizon and should be part of your preparedness top-of-mind:

1. 5g.  This is a new and faster cell phone service which will require new cell phones and maybe new cell service (although TMobile has already said they won't raise rates).  I'm not an early adapter to tech since there are usually quite a few bugs to work out--and the exorbitant costs of new tech, remember $1000 VCRs?--which means I will wait for a bit after release until prices drop and any glitches are worked out.
2. Presidential election.  Although the actual presidential election will not take place until November 2020, caucuses and primaries will begin in early 2020.  Registering to vote and getting everyone you know to do the same is a good way to prepare for this.
3. Taxes.  If you owed taxes when you filed your federal tax return this year, now is a great time to adjust your withholdings so that you won't have this same issue next year.
4. Social media.  These days, people are regurgitating their entire lives via their social media posts.  No big deal in the US you say?  While I would hope we won't go the way of China, this is an idea of what can happen in the future if you aren't careful today.
5. Health.  Today you may be young, (relatively) healthy, chowing down on fast food, and gaming every spare moment of your day but while young people are pretty invincible, a decade or so from now, the health decisions you make today may come back to haunt you.  Pay attention to your health, what and how you eat, and how often you exercise.  I did a 10k today with a couple who were in their late 70s, vegans, they exercise a couple hours everyday, and they could run circles around many younger people in the event; that sort of health is something to aspire to.
6. Job skills.  Hopefully your job will be safe and secure until you retire, technology and AI, however, may prevent this.  The AI revolution is coming, and even FedEx is getting into the "delivery by bot" thing beginning this summer.
7. Recession.  The economy is cyclical so a future recession is a good possibility.  See yesterday's post and become recession-proof.
8. Vehicles.  I believe completely self-driving cars are on the not-too-distant horizon.  Tesla is working on this (albeit with a lot of legal skirmishes to work through) and trucking jobs are now in the cross hairs of autonomous driving tech as I write this; such news can impact everything from what jobs people train for (truck driver?  meh) to how often they buy new cars (I'm driving mine until it dies, hopefully when this happens self-driving tech will be fully functional).
9. Healthcare.  This will be an interesting "futurology" topic as the drive towards universal healthcare kicks up in the next election, the innovations being made in healthcare keep growing exponentially, and the US (as well as many other countries) face a shortage of elder care options in the future.  Again, the best way to avoid many of these problems is to be healthy, see #5 above.
10. UBI.  Something that may or may not happen in the future but which has been tossed around quite frequently, is the possibility of a Universal Basic Income.  With thousands of jobs being cut regularly, the AI situation mentioned above (#6), and income inequality continuing to grow, UBI may be something that happens in our future.  While this may sound like a nice way to live, surviving on only UBI (just like surviving on only Social Security) is not a great idea so plan accordingly.

Preparing for Automation

I came across this article today about a taxi driver who killed himself in front of City Hall in New York City to make a point.  Sadly I find his death to be relatively pointless.  First, if you are working 120 hours a week and not making enough to make ends meet, you need a different job.  Or to move somewhere else with a more reasonable cost of living.  Just because you feel you should be able to make a living doing something doesn't mean there is a market for your efforts.  Secondly, every industry undergoes change.  Sometimes it is slow change and sometimes it is massive and quick change but just because Uber comes on the scene and upends the traditional taxi business (thank goodness they did, the taxi industry in Las Vegas is rather awful), it doesn't mean that legislators should come to the rescue and try to turn back time to make someone happy.  Life doesn't work that way.

Interestingly enough, my own city of Las Vegas is set to be hit the hardest by automation with forecasters saying that 65% of the city's jobs could be automated within 20 years.  And do you see 65% of the workers here getting prepared for the time when their job will become automated and their presence will become superfluous?  Not that I have seen.  Which leads us to today's post...

How will you prepare for automation?  There have been numerous articles on the topic (here, here, and here) but no real consensus.  No one knows exactly what an automated future will look like but the general idea is that we will need many fewer people to accomplish our everyday tasks.  When I think back just 30 years ago, we were much more dependent on people doing their jobs in order for us to do our jobs.  Remember typing pools? Remember having to go to work in a building with offices and filing cabinets and janitors and maintenance supers?  Remember going to the store, picking out a gift, wrapping it, packaging it, going to the post office and mailing it?  Yep, all of these things are pretty much unnecessary these days as anyone can type up a document on their computer, many people work from home, and buying gifts can easily be done online now.

If I was a young person now, I would be looking at work as a life-long hustle.  I would be developing skills in multiple areas that would be hard to automate (plumber, electrician, nurse, surgeon) as well as have a good grasp of technology (yes we will need people to fix robots but eventually I think robots will be able to fix robots so there's that).  I would focus on self sufficiency and living minimally.  Basically you need a roof over your head, utilities, food, some clothing, and some tech products--all of which you can figure out how to do for yourself for the most part.

Finally, you need to keep an eye on what is happening and look for opportunities.  I mean, it would be nice to be the founder of Apple (not Wozniak but Jobs in this scenario) or the owner of the backbone of a major cellular network, but there are plenty of people making a good living off of producing and selling iPhone cases.  You don't need to have a deep knowledge of technology and deep pockets to survive, you need to see opportunity and grab onto it and ride it until you see the next wave which you will then use to move on to better, more lucrative things.